By- Mohar V, Co-founder and CEO, TECHVED
Everyone has shifted to the digital era, and it has been accepted and consumed as a basic human need. While consumption is so high, what matters most is security. We don’t go out if it’s too dark at night; then how can we blindly follow the digital shift without being protected? One thing we’re all experiencing today is data privacy and data responsibility. It is becoming part of our everyday digital life, whether we’re shopping online, signing up for a webinar, or simply browsing a website. From morning until we go to sleep, we are constantly using digital platforms. It’s a great, empowering, and developing shift, but earlier, data security was not regarded as a liability, and every day we hear about data breaches and security frauds. Now, this will no longer be a concern. The significant step taken by our government through the enforcement of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act in 2025 accelerates this shift. What used to be a background concern is now an expectation: “Tell me how my data is being used and let me decide.”
This read offers a practical, user-friendly roadmap to help organisations make their websites fully DPDP-compliant. Instead of drowning readers in legal terminology, it simplifies the journey into clear, actionable steps, right from updating consent forms and privacy notices to reshaping internal data-handling processes.
What DPDP Compliance Really Means for Websites
DPDP is not merely a box to tick off a legal compliance list; rather, it represents a shift in thinking about what is expected of your website.
DPDP requires that you provide:
- Clarityon what consent
- Anexpectation for transparency for data
- Aminimalamountofcollected data.
- Asecuremethodofstoring and/ortransmitting any collected data.
- A means of responding to user rights.
- A source of compliance with whatisscheduledto be your 2025.
Simply put, DPDP focuses on establishing trust in a digital-first world. Here’s how!
Step 1: Start With a DPDP Readiness Audit
Before changing anything, you need clarity. This is where you typically begin — a DPDP readiness audit that uncovers blind spots. A readiness audit allows companies to understand exactly where they stand. For instance, a well-known e-commerce marketplace, to assess its DPDP readiness, it is discovered that although the company collected very minimal amounts of personal data and stored that data securely, they were not completely clear about where it was stored or who had access to it internally.
This is the point at which the real transformation begins. It is through the collaboration of multiple functional areas, including User Experience (UX), Cybersecurity, Compliance and Engineering, that DPDP can be implemented through an organization’s internal processes.
Step 2: Fixing the Gaps – The Implementation Phase
Once gaps are identified, the next step is creating practical, organisation-wide fixes. This is where the real transformation begins and where cross-functional expertise, uniting UX, cybersecurity, compliance and engineering, truly comes together.
A good example of this is a large Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) client that had a great need to completely revamp their data retention policy. Earlier, they had an open-ended dating retention period for storing any user data they collected. However, shifting to a fixed retention period aligns with the DPDP compliance and mitigates the risk of long-term data breaches.
Step 3: Make Compliance Part of Daily Operations
DPDP isn’t a one-time project. It must be woven into your operating model. Standardising processes makes compliance easier. Many organisations use automated consent management or centralised dashboards that track data requests, manage rights and approvals internally, etc.
For example, a healthcare organisation automated data-erasure workflows to respond to user deletion requests faster and more accurately.
Step 4: Sustain Compliance Through Ongoing Monitoring
Websites constantly change and evolve, producing new tools, pages and integrations. Your compliance must evolve with it. Privacy is dynamic—so your compliance approach must be too. Continued monitoring, vendor assessments, employee training and periodic audits enable organisations to remain proactive and prepared for emerging compliance risks. A retail company implemented quarterly compliance checks and discovered an outdated third-party integration that needed to be replaced to stay DPDP-aligned.
What Readers Will Learn (From Real Life Examples)
- How informed consent should feel
Example: A simple checkbox that clearly explains why a phone number is needed, like, “We’ll use this to send delivery updates”, instead of a vague “for communication purposes.” - Why data minimisation matters
Example: If a user just wants to download an e-book, do you really need their date of birth? - How user rights translate into real digital experiences.
Example: A “Delete My Data” button that is actually visible and not buried in a 9-step support process. - How cookies, trackers and analytics tools should behave under DPDP, with user choice and transparency at the centre.
- Common compliance pitfalls companies face and how to avoid them before they become costly.
DPDP Compliance – A Gateway to Building Relationships Through Trust (The Future of Digital India).
To realise the potential of DPDP compliance, businesses must understand DPDP compliance as an opportunity rather than merely a legal obligation; DPDP compliance represents an opportunity to increase customer confidence as it also enables businesses to build relationships with their customers based on mutual respect, transparency, and trust through data protection processes.
To achieve this, businesses should follow the four steps of the roadmap provided above (Audit, Implement, Streamline and Monitor). By following this roadmap, businesses will be in a position not only to achieve compliance with DPDP but also to create a positive digital engagement experience for users and ultimately to help grow the future of Digital India, as it will incorporate trust, transparency, and technology together into a single experience.
DPDP Compliance = Customer Trust
In today’s digital age, DPDP compliance creates a customer’s trust through a customer’s ability to rely on an agency to audit, implement, and streamline their data protection processes; do more than meet their regulatory requirements; provide transparency into their practices; strengthen their brand credibility; and ultimately provide a secure online environment for the user.
To sum it all up, a DPDP-compliant website helps you:
- Stronger user relationships
- Reduced operational/legal risks
- Higher-quality data collected
- Increased brand credibility and trust
- Enhanced digital performance
- Boost digital performance
- A point of competitive differentiation as a responsible organisation